Climate One

We’re making a list (and checking it twice) of 2018’s biggest climate stories, with the help of Vox reporter David Roberts. Roberts notes that while President Trump’s continued rollbacks of environmental protections made the news, the Green New Deal and ongoing decline in costs of clean energy technologies are the year’s big stories. For other parts of the country, wildfires and other extreme weather events made the biggest headlines. Greg Dalton talks to some of California’s leading wildfire experts about how to adapt to the “new abnormal” of more intense and more frequent wildfires.

Guests (in order of appearance):

David Roberts, Staff Writer, Vox

J. Keith Gilles, Chair, California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection; Professor of Forest Economics, UC Berkeley

Maggi Kelly Professor and Cooperative Extension Specialist in the Environmental Science, Policy and Management Department, UC Berkeley

Thom Porter, Chief of Strategic Planning, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)

We all know about the environmental and physical effects of climate change. But what about its impact on our mental health? Therapists report that their patients are exhibiting symptoms of what they call “climate anxiety” – loss of sleep, changes in appetite, feelings of grief, anger and hopelessness. How do we maintain our optimism in the face of a global existential crisis? And how do we talk with others about our fears without turning them off – or freaking them out? Three climate psychologists discuss how to cope with mounting anxiety brought on by climate change.

Guests:

Renee Lertzman, Climate Engagement Strategist; Author, Environmental Melancholia: Psychoanalytic Dimensions of Engagement (Routledge, 2016)

Leslie Davenport, Psychotherapist; Author, Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change: A Clinician’s Guide (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017)

Bryant Welch, Clinical Psychologist; Author, State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind (2018)

From fires and floods to hurricanes and hot temperatures, 2018 put climate on the front page in ways it hadn’t been before. Yet amidst the disruption, clean energy prices continued to fall, climate-conscious technologies continued to progress, and people living on the front lines of climate change found ways to adapt and thrive. Join us for a look back on some of our most memorable conversations of 2018.

Guests (in order of appearance):

Lizzie Johnson

Scott Stephens

Francis Suarez

Steve Benjamin

Sylvester Turner

Solomon Hsiang

Katherine Mach

Arlie Hochschild

Eliza Griswold

Debbie Dooley

Christine Pelosi

Christiana Figueres

Roy Scranton

Davida Herzl

Gabriel Kra

Lydia Dervisheva

Mike Selden

Patrick Brown

Sanjay Dastoor

Megan Rose Dickey

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Stabilizing our climate is going to take some hard truths – and hard numbers. “If you look at 1.5 degrees, it's about 13 years,” says Stanford’s Arun Majumdar. “If you look at 2 degrees, it’s 20 years. And after that, it’s zero.” We can fight back with the power of zero: a zero-carbon grid, zero-emission vehicles, zero-net energy buildings and zero-waste manufacturing. Whether through massive technological breakthroughs or deployment of existing technologies, powering these opportunities will require funding and policy changes. Can a four-zero solution lead to a low carbon-future?

Guests:

Hal Harvey, CEO, Energy Innovation, Author, Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy (Island Press, 2018)

Kate Gordon, Fellow, Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy

Arun Majumdar, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Co-Director at the Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford

It’s a holiday movie special as Climate One talks to the directors/producers of four recent documentaries that bring human drama to the climate story:

Hillbilly, which explores the myths and realities of life in the Appalachian coalfields;

My Country No More, the story of one rural community divided by the North Dakota oil boom;

Saving the Dark, which focuses on the battle of dark-sky enthusiasts to fight light pollution;

and Point of No Return, in which two pilots risk their lives flying around the world in a solar-powered plane that is as delicate as a t-shirt.

Guests:

Rita Baghdadi, Co-Director, My Country No More

Noel Dockstader, Co-Director, Point of No Return

Jeremiah Hammerling, Co-Director, My Country No More

Quinn Kanaly, Co-Director, Point of No Return

Sriram Murali, Director/Producer, Saving the Dark

Sally Rubin, Co-Director, Hillbilly

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In their 1968 book The Population Bomb, Paul and Anne Ehrlich warned of the dangers of overpopulation. These included mass starvation, societal upheaval and environmental ruin. This and other dire predictions about humankind earned Ehrlich a reputation as a prophet of doom, and fifty years later he doesn’t see much in the way of improvement. Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, on the other hand, prefers to look on the bright side: people are living longer, extreme poverty has been decreasing globally, worldwide literacy is on the rise. Is the glass half empty, or half full?

Guests:

Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; author, “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress” (Penguin, 2018)

Paul R. Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University; co-author, “The Population Bomb” (Ballantine, 1968)

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The U.S. has surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world's biggest oil producer, largely due to the fracking revolution. Yet new development of fossil fuels is not consistent with the math of the Paris climate accord. So what's next for fossil fuels?

Guests:

Bethany McLean, Author, Saudi America: The Truth about Fracking and How It's Changing the World

Kassie Siegel, Senior Counsel, Climate Law Institute Director at Center for Biological Diversity

Severin Borenstein, E.T. Grether Professor, Haas School of Business, University of California

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Red states, blue states – when it comes to our environment, are we really two different Americas? New Yorker writer Eliza Griswold spent time in southwestern Pennsylvania to tell the story of a family living on the front lines of the fracking boom. Berkeley professor Arlie Hochschild traveled to Louisiana to escape what she calls the “bubble” of coastal thinking. Both writers emerged with books that paint an honest portrait of a misunderstood America. On today’s program, tales of the people whose lives have been impacted by America’s craving for energy, the choices they’ve made, and their fight to protect their families and their environment.

Guests:

Eliza Griswold, Journalist, The New Yorker; Author, “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018)

Arlie Russell Hochschild, Professor Emerita, University of California Berkeley; Author, “Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right” (The New Press, 2018)

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After a year of climate-amplified fires and hurricanes around the country, New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel tells host Greg Dalton how climate and energy issues are playing in the midterm elections. Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project, describes what his organization is doing to mobilize the more than 10 million Americans who cite environmental protection as a core value but who don't vote regularly. And Sam Arons, Director of Sustainability at Lyft, explains how his company is encouraging its employees and customers to get out and vote.

Guests:

Trip Gabriel, political reporter, The New York Times

Nathaniel Stinnett, Founder & Executive Director, The Environmental Voter Project

Sam Arons, Director Sustainability Lyft

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Chinese factories churn out parts and products that end up in our cars, our kitchens and our cell phones. And all that productivity has improved the lives of its citizens, many of whom can now afford cars and cell phones of their own. It’s also made China the global leader in carbon emissions. But in her new book, “Will China Save the Planet,” Barbara Finamore says that China may well take the lead in saving the world from environmental catastrophe. How? By phasing out coal and investing in green energy to power its factories and keep its cities moving. With the US government cutting efforts to curb carbon pollution, is it possible that China is our best hope for saving the planet?

Guests:

Barbara Finamore, Asia Senior Strategic Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Author, "Will China Save the Planet?" (Polity, 2018)

Carter Roberts, President and CEO, World Wildlife Fund, United States

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